Last night in a calm, considered and educated manner the EDL thought about it’s response to the brutal public murder and botched beheading of a man going about his business in Woolwich, London….not really, as you might expect from a group of reactionary right wing morons. They set about making the most of the situation and used the murder as an excuse to dress up like terrorists and run around with plod. They got pissed, the celebrations got out of hand, and they ended up smashing up a pub before fighting with police. Vice magazine took some good photos of the pricks here – Vice pics.
London EDL, Bexley Div – Celebrating the fact they think there’s a chance for a bit of racism.
The EDL is really going to milk this horrible incident, giving the two murderers exactly what they wanted; divided communities. As has been said many times, the British far right (EDL etc) and lunatic religious extremists are two sides of the same coin. The religious extremists can’t get any support for their insane ideas from 99.9% of British Muslims, so they carry out a brutal murder and the EDL responds just as the extremists would like – they attack the innocent, ruining lives and communities, and trying to divide us in a way that the religious fanatics could never have done on their own. It’s lucky for the rest of us that the Muslim community is in general very thoughtful, and reacts to the threats with a dignity that the EDL followers will never know.
There have already been incidents of attacks against innocent Muslim communities – in Essex a masked man walked into a mosque brandishing knives, in Kent a mosque was vandalised and in Bolton cars outside a mosque have been done over. One shitsack ‘patriot’ has been spreading lies on twitter that ordinary Muslims in Oldham were celebrating in the streets!?! This lie was then spread by CxF and EDL until GM Police had to take to twitter to say it was a load of old cobblers. On BBC Radio Five a caller of Indian descent, with kids in the army, talked of how she did not feel safe with the EDL running around blaming all brown people.
Other EDL divisions throughout the country, who have been ‘surrendered’ for some time are springing into life again to capitalise on the horrific murder. No doubt the Newcastle EDL organisers are rubbing their hands in glee, hoping that this death will boost their numbers at Saturdays protest. The EDL has called for a demo for bank holiday Monday outside Downing Street – presumably as the two murderers were sent on an all expenses paid cruise rather than being shot, huh? Time for London to unite and show the haters where to go! All Antifascists will be remaining vigilant over the coming weeks – to again try to stop the rot the far right brings to our streets, and using the upsurge in EDL facebook activity to gather intelligence on organised racism.
YAY “we got what we wanted” Sick fascists, yesterday evening.
Below is a statement from an AFN affiliated group, speaking on behalf of the Anti-Fascist Network.
The Anti-Fascist Network deplores the murder of a young man in Woolwich yesterday and our condolences go out to his family and friends. We also deplore the use of this incident by the far right to stir up Islamophobia once again.
By calling a ‘terrorist alert’ the government has shamelessly sought political capital from what was clearly an isolated act of brutality by a couple of lone psychopaths claiming to be Muslims. There are maniacs in every community and grouping, not least the far right. The loss of a life in such horrific circumstances is always a tragedy for those involved, just as it was when fascists killed Altab Ali or when the police killed Blair Peach.
Meanwhile the Muslim community has conducted itself with dignity, and a huge number of individual Muslims have spontaneously taken to social media to disassociate themselves from any kind of sectarian violence.
Unlike the EDL, now virtually a spent force, who have chosen to use this man’s death to go on a recruiting drive and encourage attacks on minorities. The Internet is now buzzing with ‘patriots’, nationalists and fascists eager to exploit the situation – please don’t encourage them by carelessly repeating their drivel.
We will all need to be vigilant, and work with our communities against any rise in fascist activity.
We reproduce below a statement from the Muslim Council of Great Britain:
“This is a truly barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly.
Our thoughts are with the victim and his family.We understand the victim is a serving member of the Armed Forces. Muslims have long served in this country’s Armed Forces, proudly and with honour.
This attack on a member of the Armed Forces is dishonourable, and no cause justifies this murder. This action will no doubt heighten tensions on the streets of the United Kingdom.
We call on all our communities, Muslim and non-Muslim, to come together in solidarity to ensure the forces of hatred do not prevail.”
– Muslim Council of Great Britain
There’s another blog post worth checking here: Andy Carrington
Photo’s in this article are taken by extremely good looking, talented photographers, who work with Vice Magazine , used without permission (sorry).
Anti-Fascist Network 